Sleeping Cutie

Interesting night last night.

As far as nights go, to me it was no less disrupted than normal. Charley wanted feeding a couple of times. Ben wanted booby cuddles. Nappies needed changing. But to Steve, I think it has really affected him. He's had to go and lie down, obviously exhausted!

I was proud of myself early this morning though. I managed to cuddle Ben to sleep, feed Charley, take him off to get his nappy changed, get him back onto the bed and settled, and take myself through the trauma of going to the toilet. Sadly it didn't end well - Charley woke up with wind and was sick, Steve had to get up and deal with it, Charley was crying for milk having been sick and done a big burp, I came back in from the bathroom almost completely night-blinded and was next to useless, and then of course Ben woke up and wanted milky cuddles as well. Quite a stressful moment.

I guess we've got to remember that it was only the first night of us all being together as a family. And there is only one bed at the moment so there is no option but to bedshare. It will get better. We're still all finding our feet and working things out. Ben will stop waking every time Charley cries. He will go back to accepting cuddles from daddy at night, which he has been doing while I've been in hospital. Steve will get used to the broken nights associated with having a newborn again. I'll heal physically and won't be in agony every time I go to the toilet. Charley will have a bedside cot attached which should give us a bit more room. And Ben will have his big bed eventually, which we're hoping he'll like so much he'll want to spend more and more time in it! Especially if he starts accepting daddy cuddles again.

Since getting home Ben has wanted me LOTS. And not just me, but milk. We've had to have talks about how and when he can have milky cuddles - we'd already got one rule by daybreak which is that tandem nursing sessions only happen when I'm sitting up, at least until we figure anything else out. This afternoon we agreed that Ben can have milk as a treat during the day but only if he eats something normal afterwards. He'd have milk all day at the moment if he could, which is understandable I guess given that he says it tastes nicer and there's more of it than before! But, any liquid diet with a toddler is only going to produce one end result and I'd rather avoid that. Plus all this milk must be making his toddler blood sugar levels go up and down like a yo-yo which is fairly evident in his behaviour as well - as soon as he eats some slow-release carbohydrate like a crumpet he settles down quickly. Having tried that, I think it may have to be the other way round - he can only have milk if he has some slow-release carbs first. A lot like baby-led weaning, where you make sure they have a milk feed first before offering any solid food, except the other way round - making sure Ben has solid food before letting him near the boob!!

Bed-building unfortunately has ground to a halt with a snap at one end of an important beam, thanks to a particularly inconveniently positioned knot in the wood. Time to give Ikea Customer Services a call, I think.

At least we might get the cot attached to the bed this evening - I hope.

Steve's been into the attic today and brought down a load of stuff we got for Ben! There's the lambskin rug that his work bought us when Ben was born, the baby donut ring plaything, and several bags of clothes for newborn and 0-3 for me to go through. I wonder if Ben will mind if Charley shares his wardrobe and general storage space for clothes? After all in a couple of years or so Charley will be moving in with him anyway...! I did try and ask him, but I got told to be quiet as he was "just watching something". That's me told! He's quite his father's son sometimes ;0)

Visitors today - Hayley arrived first and had cuddles with Charley and tussles with Ben while I finished my breakfast, then she was able to let Joe in who had come to fix the boiler (something just needed tightening thankfully) while I was feeding Charley. Almost as soon as Joe had gone the midwives arrived - this time I'd just settled down with Ben for milky cuddles so Hayley answered the door again! Good job she was here, as Steve had also been otherwise occupied each time the doorbell rang! The midwives were quite happy with everything: with me and how I was doing, and with Charley and how he was doing. They had a quick look at his belly button and declared it perfectly normal (it had been weeping a bit but wasn't red at all) and were happy with his colour and general demeanour.

I think at this point I need to record for posterity a couple of lines from my post-natal care record.

"2.30am 2 x paracetamol given as requested. Breastfeeding on demand. Baby bedsharing with Jenny - no concerns at this time."

Just makes me smile :) So much has changed in the three years since I was last there after giving birth - last time it took a couple of days before I got a bedside cot attachment. This time the new beds don't allow for bedside cots - so they just put the sides up, shove pillows in to make bumpers, and as long as you're not doped on medication or exhaustion they are happy for you to bedshare!

Pizza for tea tonight. This twosday tuesday thing mustn't be a long-term fixture but it's sotempting at the moment...!



Oh yes. The photographs. Steve is the photographer and camera geek in the family. Seriously. He gets frustrated because I hog the camera so he ends up posting iPhone pictures instead! I think he's enjoyed being able to take proper photographs the past few days :) You should go and have a look at them, there are some beautiful pictures of Charley! I just take pictures, I'm no camera geek at all. It's been frustrating for me the past few days because although I've been taking pictures on the DSLR, I've not been able to blip them because the camera has been going home at night for Steve to upload stuff to the laptop. And because I've needed to write my journal every day before the memories simply dissipate, the pictures I'm uploading to accompany the journal are almost "placeholders" - but now they're up I don't want to change them! I'll put a little collection up in a blipfolio soon, once I've gone through them properly.



Pizza's here. Steve's in bed asleep. Charley is asleep in his blanket on the lambskin. Ben is snacking on crumpet. Timed that well didn't I!!